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Did Lakewood bus protest fizzle?

Parents of private school students in Lakwood were encouraged to drive their children to school as a "drill" to dramatize road conditions if courtesy busing as abolished in the town.
STAFF VIDEO BY THOMAS P. COSTELLO

In a place where traffic jams occur as regularly as the sun sets, the call by some of the township's religious leaders for a two-morning boycott of school buses appears to have been taken seriously by parents, township and county officials and various community leaders on Wednesday.

Parents carpooled. Police officers were stationed at key intersections. Ambulances were parked throughout town at strategic locations.

So even though it was hard to spot a school bus with a child sitting inside, many observers said Wednesday morning's traffic was not dramatically worse than any other weekday commute in Lakewood.

"In some ways, we were a victim of our own success," said Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, one of the organizers. "The question is how sustainable this would be."

Weisberg and other community leaders called for the bus boycott as a "drill" for what would happen in September should nearly $4 million in courtesy busing for students in grades four to 12 who live within 2.5 miles of their schools end.

Lakewood eliminated the busing from the $151 million budget for the 2014-15 school year as the district struggles to find the cash to keep up with an exploding student population, particularly in Lakewood's nonpublic schools.

Most of Lakewood's private schools are Orthodox religious centers, a reflection of the township's growing Jewish population. In 2009, more than half of its residents were Jewish, according to a survey by the University of Miami and the University of Connecticut.

Lakewood's population is projected to grow from 92,000 in the 2010 U.S. Census to 220,000 by 2030.

On Wednesday, additional Ocean County Sheriff's Office and Lakewood officers were placed throughout the township to direct traffic and to assist pedestrians, Lt. Steve Allaire said.

"There was definitely an increase in traffic, but it only lasted for a short while," Allaire said. "Before long, traffic returned to its normal patterns."

Lakewood's emergency medical technicians did not need to respond to any calls during the height of the protest, said Scott Carter, supervisor of the township's Emergency Medical Services Department.

"There was a bit more congestion that we noticed," said Carter, noting that Prospect Street appeared to have more vehicles than normal. "Thankfully, the day was uneventful for us."

Both departments intend to use basically the same plans during Thursday's protest, Allaire and Carter said.

Weisberg believes that should an emergency have occurred on Wednesday morning, needed personnel would have been able to get through the traffic.

"Had there been a call, I don't think the response time would have significantly changed," Weisberg said. "We did not want to put life or limb in danger."

The Rev. Glenn Wilson, founder of United Neighbors Improving Today's Equality, said that if the protest's organizers were trying to prove how bad life would be without courtesy busing, they failed on Wednesday.

"I got across town twice in the morning, it wasn't a big deal," said Wilson, a frequent critic of the district's financial and educational decisions. "I didn't really see a lot of commotion out there."

Wilson said he supports both the idea of individuals protesting what they disagree with and the concept of courtesy busing.

He believes the district could continue courtesy busing and save money if nonpublic school leaders agreed to allow both boys and girls on buses, if routes were better organized and if school start times were staggered.

"After the protests are done, we need to sit down and solve the problem," Wilson said.

On Wednesday, traffic along the single lanes of Route 9 south of Lake Carasaljo moved as slowly as it typically does – it took about 15 minutes to travel two blocks.

For years, Lakewood and state Sen. Robert Singer have requested that the state consider a road widening project to improve traffic flow at the site, where two lanes in each direction are reduced to one.

Traffic tie-ups peaked shortly after 9 a.m., when vehicles backed up for about two blocks at the intersection of Route 9 and Ninth Street, near the Lakewood Cheder School. After about 20 minutes, traffic eased again and vehicles appeared to be going at least 25 mph.

"This sucks," said Joe Bolowski, a contractor driving through Lakewood, shortly after honking his horn. "It's taken me 15 to 20 minutes to do what normally takes a minute."

Parents appeared to comply with the order by nonpublic school leaders: most buses were empty.

Anna Nagurka, a Lakewood bus driver for 26 years, said she normally picks up 50 students on her route. Today, her bus was empty.

"I heard a lot of the parents carpooled," she said. The drivers of four other school buses also said they did not pick up any children along their routes.

Lakewood Superintendent Laura Winters could not be reached for comment on how the district handled the protest.

Anticipating traffic

Parent Mendel Steinberg said he left his home early in anticipation of Wednesday's increased traffic.

It took several traffic light cycles before Steinberg made it through the intersection of Route 9 and Ninth Street shortly after 9 a.m. He said he was running late for his job as a teacher at a neighboring school.

"I think people are not leaving at the same time, but are trying to spread it out," " said Steinberg after dropping off his two sons at Lakewood Cheder School. "It wasn't as bad as I feared, but I wouldn't want to do this every day."

Weisberg hopes a dialogue between public and nonpublic school officials and the state Department of Education on the issue that occurred Monday can continue.

He disagrees that the two-day call to boycott school buses is a protest, saying that community leaders simply want to see what may happen in September so everyone can properly prepare.

"If we wanted to do a protest, we could have really clogged the streets," Weisberg said. "There's a pretty strong consensus that it's not really a tolerable situation to have this number of students walking and carpooling."